hope is an endless song (so kiss me for eternity)
by everybreatheverymove
Summary: (Prompt: "basorexia" & "That's a lot of blood".) He reaches forward on instinct, running his hands through her hair, fingers slipping through her curls in adoration, "I can't get mad at you for wanting your dad back." (She hopes that maybe, if anything at all, she'll always have him. Hope is all she's ever had.)


"That... El, that's a lot of blood."

"It's fine." She says, taking a deep breath as soon as the words have fallen from her mouth.

Mike sighs, frustrated, but he kneels down in front of her anyway. He leans forward, hands finding her knees, thumbs pressing against the insides of her thighs. He traces comforting circles against her skin, applying soft pressure to the bones that stick out (ever so slightly), to the small muscles she's developed from her morning runs that swell beneath his touch.

He focuses his attention on the way her thighs clench and unclench at the sensation, her breath slowing with every other brush of his thumb along the back of her knee. Each time he runs a fingertip making her shoulders rise and fall in a steady rhythm.

Eventually, he grabs her thighs in curiosity — palms spread out across her skin, grip rougher, harder than before — and the muscles beneath his hands twitch.

(She doesn't even know she's doing it, he thinks. It's normal now.)

"El."

"Stop talking." She tells him, and a hand flies out to cover his mouth. El runs her fingers along the bridge of his nose, lowers them to his lips to silence him, "Please?" She dips her head, but the blindfold across her eyes obstructs her view.

Mike would remove it but she'd only put it back on.

"Just a minute."

"One." He mumbles with the slightest of nods, pressing his lips against her fingertips in reassurance. She feels it, his concession, and then her hands are back in her lap.

(If she doesn't do it now, Mike doesn't think she ever will.)

(He won't tell her this, though.)

"He should be here."

Mike only shifts his gaze from her lap to her face, watching as her eyebrows furrow, peeking out from behind the green cloth — an old t-shirt of his that she'd borrowed back in high school.

(They'd spent a whole afternoon in the basement, skin clammy from a lack of fresh air, breath hot from a lack of oxygen. They'd spent that whole afternoon with the doors locked and the radio on. She'd gone back home that weekend wearing a stolen t-shirt with his whole heart stuffed inside the chest pocket.)

He drops his eyes down to her abdomen then, watching as every breath forces her stomach in and out. Left hand drifting in the air for a moment on indecision, Mike settles it on her stomach with a sigh. He half-expects a kick as soon as he touches her, almost wants the baby she's carrying to throttle him, send him back as she once did.

(There's nothing. It's too early for that.)

El places both of her hands over his own, breathing out ever so calmly. "I'll try again tomorrow."

Mike grins — not the wide, beaming kind, but the kind of smile that offers her reassurance and comfort when she needs it most — and he threads his fingers through hers, wrist curling. "Okay."

El slips the blindfold from over her eyes, and she immediately ducks her head. There's no light for her eyes to adjust to — the living room is pitch black aside from the glare of fuzzy television static, "I want him to know," she says, voice soft like a whisper as she wipes her nose with the old cloth, "and I know he's-"

"Somewhere."

She nods, "Somewhere." El lets go of his hands, letting him resume his hold on her thighs, and she clutches at his shoulders, almost desperately, "I know it."

"Then we keep looking."

With a smile, she nods (ever so slightly) and she moves to kneel. She presses her knees into the carpet, dress riding up her thighs and she finds her balance. Her fingers tighten around his shoulders, narrow and lean, "You're not mad."

(How could he ever be mad at her for wanting a whole family?)

"No," Mike whispers and, when he shakes his head, black locks fall into his eyes. He reaches forward on instinct, running his hands through her hair, fingers slipping through her curls in adoration, "I can't get mad at you for wanting your dad back."

The corners of her mouth turn up then, and El glances up at her husband with hazel eyes full of wonder. "Mike?" She quirks a single brow, throat tightening. "Kiss me."

(This isn't new for them. It shouldn't feel like _this,_ but it does.)

"In the dark?" She can tell he's joking by the tone of his voice — it gets higher when he's teasing her, and he always sounds like he's about to start laughing, as though he's holding back a snicker. "Always." He kisses her.

Her hands fall down his arms until she's grasping at his elbows, clutching the long sleeves of his shirt between her fists, twisting her material as she pushes, presses harder up against him.

Mike cradles her face, just for a second, but then she moans; a gentle cry, a plea against his mouth as she melts into him, and his hands lower to her legs to wrap around the backs of her legs, pulling and tugging and hungry.

It's everything they need right now.

(And maybe it will never get old: the need and longing, the desire to kiss and embrace and feel. She hopes that maybe, if anything at all, she'll always have _him_.)

(Hope is all she's ever had.)


End file.
